Patriotic Jewel Flowers c. 1940s

Rolf Armstrong’s pin-up, Patriotic Jewel Flowers, feels like it emerged in a soft haze, a delicate balance of red, white, and blue, all swirling with a tender touch. I wonder about Armstrong’s process, the kind of looking and feeling that went into this. There is a looseness and spontaneity to this work. The scarf feels casually tossed around her shoulders. Yet, the artist wants to capture a certain look, maybe for a magazine cover, maybe just because he was drawn to the play of light and shadow on her face. I am really drawn to the light blue background, a flat space that allows her face, with its gorgeous red smile, to float forward. Maybe Armstrong was thinking about the graphic impact of the image, making something that would catch the eye from across a room, in the great tradition of American painting. It’s an ongoing dance, a conversation across time.